During League of Legend’s period of free agency, I reported on the forming of what looked to be a superteam the likes of which we’ve possibly never seen before. SK Telecom, already the winning-est team in competitive League of Legends and three-time world champions, had brought Korea’s rising jungle star, Wang Ho “Peanut” Han, onto their roster. With Peanut’s early aggression reliably securing a lead for the legendary Sang-hyeok “Faker” Lee, it seemed hard to imagine building a strategy that could take them down.
So far, their run in the LCK has shown that the other Korean teams they’ve come up against are creatively bankrupt in that department as well: SK Telecom has yet to go to a third game in any of the best-of-threes they’ve played so far.
While Faker’s been predictably doing his Faker thing, Peanut has been showing that he was worth the investment. Even in 2016’s jungling meta, which was focused on low-damage tanks, Peanut was known for nabbing kills early and often, and snowballing that into a huge advantage later in the game. Now that assassins are the flavor of the month for junglers, Peanut is an absolute calamity for opposing teams. Even with the five ban system, teams can’t seem to decide whether to stop Peanut or Faker from landing on comfort picks.
Surprisingly, SKT’s fresh top laner, Hoon Heo “Huni” Seong, has also shown up in a major way for his new team. His ratio of kills to deaths right now is a staggeringly high 23, a full 17 points higher than the runner up. Perhaps most unexpected about Huni’s play is that he’s done this on primarily tank champions like Maokai and Poppy, while in the NA LCS he preferred damage-oriented carry champions for the top lane.
Of course, SKT is still circling their true competition, the other LCK superteam: they have yet to play against KT Rolster, who are also as of yet undefeated.
